


Choices

by DameRuth



Series: Concerning Smith and Jones [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: The Doc mulls things over, and comes to a decision -- with some Zen and self-delusion along the way. Takes place duringSmith & Jones, after the TARDIS leaves Martha for the first time, and before the party.[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, originally posted 2007.04.10.]
Series: Concerning Smith and Jones [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805668
Kudos: 5





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Zen decision making is a weird thing, but it happens, and I wanted to try capturing the process in writing . . .
> 
> * * *

The Doctor leaned in the open doorway of the TARDIS and blew on his tea while he watched a star being born.  
  
Great wisps and streamers of glowing dust and gas filled the entire field of view, tracing an intricate, delicate, filigree pattern — the vast cloud that was serving as a stellar nursery. The colors were amazing — pure white, sunset red, gold, violet, all shading into one another. Brilliant, white-hot stars, newly minted, dotted the cloud, like dewdrops scattered across the petals of a giant flower.  
  
_A giant rose,_ his undermind whispered, but he steadfastly ignored it and sipped his cooled tea.  
  
The TARDIS was running out of synch with the rest of the Universe, giving him a sped-up time-lapse perspective — it was a method of watching stellar events he’d taken a fancy to after his adventure with Donna. The TARDIS grumbled about having to maintain a forcefield over the open doorway, but more out of token resistance than in real distress. In fact, the Doctor suspected his ship secretly enjoyed showing off her talents a bit, ostentatiously protecting her people.  
  
_Person._  
  
While the Doctor watched, new light suddenly sparked to life against the backdrop of the cloud, like a thermonuclear flashbulb going off — only this light wasn’t transient. Instead, it brightened and steadied, a new addition to the firmament — maybe even a new Sun, someday, should it later develop a planetary system around itself.  
  
A whole new line of possibilities opening up, new light, new worlds even . . . it was one of the finest sights in the Universe, and a particularly bracing way to start the day. Even a jaded old Time Lord could still find some wonder in it, when other sights almost as marvelous had become routine.  
  
_”We’re on the_ moon _!”_  
  
Unbidden came the memory of a young voice, expressing delight over something he himself had been ready to overlook, distracted as he was. Such a simple thing, a trip to Earth’s moon, but he’d looked over to see her face positively glowing with wonder — even surrounded by the unknown, with dreadful danger lurking, she had seen the beauty before them, and loved it.  
  
For just a moment, gazing back out over that ancient rocky desert at the luminous, cloud-swirled planet in front of them, he had seen through her eyes, and been reminded that she was right — it _was_ beautiful, it _was_ wonderful, and it _was_ deserving of a second look, or a third, or a thirtieth.  
  
_What would you make of this, Martha Jones?_ he wondered, draining the last of his tea and contemplating the spectacle before him.  
  
He sighed, and his sore chest twinged at him. Lucky he had a Time Lord’s exceptionally strong and flexible skeletal structure, or Miss Jones would have broken several of his ribs with her (admittedly inspired) attempt at performing CPR on a binary vascular system.  
  
While hardly an official Time Lord first aid technique, it had worked, and he’d gone on to stay rude-and-not-ginger for a while longer yet.  
  
She'd make a good doctor, in time, he thought. She was smart and level-headed, and she cared. Cared enough that when they were standing out on that balcony, looking at the Earth from afar, she’d actually tried to reassure him — him! — that everything would be all right in the end, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. She just had that way about her, a desire to look out for others, and help them if she could. Very proper attitude, for a doctor.  
  
He couldn’t help wondering if anyone was looking out for Martha Jones.  
  
He hoped she’d recovered well — physically and otherwise — from her unexpected adventure. He hadn’t been able to hang about, once they’d returned to Earth. Too much attention, everything swarming with police and the media and onlookers — he’d barely managed to slip away cleanly as it was. She’d looked all right when he last saw her, though . . .  
  
He rolled the empty teacup between the palms of his hands, thinking and not-thinking at the same time. Then, without making a conscious decision, he closed the TARDIS doors and walked to the control panel. He set the teacup down, balanced precariously on a mostly-flat spot between levers, and stood lost in a contemplative haze.  
  
Around him, perceptible to a Time Lord’s esoteric senses, the fog of temporal probabilities and pathways buzzed, seeming a little thicker than usual -- like the particularly unsettled flux that heralded some sort of major decision.  
  
_Curious,_ the Doctor thought, detached. _Nothing that important going on right now. Just deciding where to go next . . ._  
  
He had her name, and her place of employment, and he knew her family was having a party.  
  
Shouldn’t be hard to find out where that party was.  
  
He stood there, fingertips braced against the control panel, almost swaying, lost in thought but unaware of being so, while the tension in the probability field increased . . . and then suddenly snapped into stability. Decision made, timeline branches and pathways shifting, stabilizing, crystallizing into new and unexpected patterns . . .  
  
Almost on its own, his hand moved, and began to set the controls.  
  
\--  
  
The Doctor leaned against the corner of the building and watched the spectacular fireworks of Martha’s family meltdown, with his eyebrows inching up towards his hairline.  
  
_Impressive. And I thought Jackie knew how to pitch a fit . . ._ He closed off that thought before it went any farther, and concentrated on Martha.  
  
There she was in the center of it all, trying to exert stability, and getting back nothing but frustration.  
  
He could have slipped away, then, and nobody would have been the wiser. But, instead, he stayed where he was, and waited for Martha to notice him. She was perceptive. She would . . . and she did.  
  
\--  
  
He padded down the alleyway, heading back towards the TARDIS, and heard Martha’s running footsteps behind him. He grinned to himself. It would have to be her choice, all of it — no second chances.  
  
Rose had been wonderful -- unique -- and he’d treasured his time with her . . . but it hadn’t been fair to her, in the end. She’d been exiled to another Universe, lost and hurting. It was pain she’d never have known if she hadn’t traveled with him, if he hadn’t given her that second chance to say _yes._  
  
It was _never_ fair, come to that. Traveling with him wasn’t the gift it looked like to some.  
  
Martha would have to choose this, all on her own. And if it was what she wanted, well then. . .  
  
Still, it would just be one trip. No longer. Anything more, and she’d run the risk of getting all attached, heading down the road to a heartbreak she didn’t deserve. He planned to look after Martha.  
  
That was his choice.  
  
He would stick to it.  
  
He was that kind of man.  


* * *

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This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=11467>


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